It’s illegal in Cebu province to gather and harvest brown seaweed or “samu”, whose loss would damage marine habitats for fish but what about places that ship them here?
To close the loophole, Provincial Board Member Thadeo Ouano on Monday proposed to expand the ban to cover transhipment or transportation of the seaweed whose scientific name is sargassum polycystum.
Otherwise “it would result in an implementation gap” in the Provincial Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Ordinance of Cebu which was passed in 2012 during the past administration.
The seaweed, locally called “samu” or “kwapo”, is processed into plastic or fertilizer, and is also exported abroad.
Last year, a 14-wheel cargo truck full of samu was apprehended in Danao City at a checkpoint of the Bantay Dagat but had to be released later.
The cargo of about 11,000 kilos was from Masbate province. The owner said they had a transport permit and were delivering it to a customer in Cebu City for export to China and Japan.
The Capitol task force on illegal fishing said the truck was heading for a processing factory in Cebu City where the seaweed would be produced into plastic and fertilizer.
The task force was unable to prosecute the violators since the Cebu ordinance does not cover the shipment of seaweed.
“The request to include samu came from the provincial anti-illegal fishing task force. They were able to apprehend violators before but were released since the samu came from Masbate and was just transported here. That is why we want that corrected,” said Ouano.
“We don’t allow the harvesting of samu in the province. We’re the only province with that law. In Masbate, they allow the harvest and use our province as a transit point. We won’t allow that anymore,” he added.
The current Cebu ordinance prohibits extraction, gathering and harvesting of the seaweed. The penalty is a P3,000 fine and an additional P1,000 fine for each kilo of seagrass.
When the owner of the apprehended truck was interviewed, he said he wasn’t aware of any ban.
“We just collect the brown algae (seaweeds) when it dies and gets washed up on the shore,” he said.
“In fact, people there are very happy when we come to collect it because when that rots, it smells. I can’t understand why they stopped us here in Cebu,” he added.
Several scientific studies show the usefulness of seaweed as fertilizer.
They are used as as whole or finely chopped powdered algal manure or liquid extracts.
“The use of natural seaweed products as substitutes to the conventional synthetic fertilizer has assumed importance,” concluded a 2009 study by the Annamalai University in India.